Sword-Maker(32)

She glanced at me. “It was your promise.” In other words, she was leaving the introductions and explanations to me.

Uncomfortable, I shifted in the saddle, redistributing weight. Down south I’m happy enough to talk with villagers or tanzeers, to strike bargains, suggest deals, invent solutions to problems—but that’s down south, where I know the language. And also where they pay me for such things. Coin is a tremendous motivator.

The thing was, I wasn’t south. I didn’t know the people, didn’t know the language—at least, not very well—didn’t know the customs. And that sort of ignorance can make for a world of trouble.

“They’re waiting,” Del said quietly.

So they were. All of them. Staring back at me.

Well, nothing for it but to do the best I could. I sucked in a deep breath. “I’m hunting hounds,” I began in Southron-accented Northern—and the whole village broke into cheering.

It was noise enough to wake the dead. Before all I’d heard was the racket of animals; now there was human noise to contend with, too. And it was just as bad.

Hands patted my legs, which was all anyone could reach. I couldn’t help it: I stiffened and reached up for my sword; realized, belatedly, all the hands did was pat. It was a form of welcome, of joy; of tremendous gratitude.

Del’s roan was surrounded. She, too, was undergoing the joyful welcome. I wondered what it felt like for her, since she hadn’t come to Ysaa-den to help anyone. She’d come for her own requirements, which had nothing to do with hounds. Only with Ajani.

If anyone noticed I wasn’t Northern, which seemed fairly likely, it wasn’t brought up. Apparently all that mattered was that Staal-Ysta had heard of their plight, answered their pleas, sent us to settle things. No one cared who we were. To them, we were salvation with steel redemption in our sheaths.

I looked out across the throng. Since they expected us to save them, I saw no point in wasting time. So I got right to the point. “Where are these beasts coming from?”

As one they turned to the mountain. To the dragon atop their world. And one by one, they pointed. Even the little children.

“Ysaa,” someone murmured. And then all the others joined in. The world rolled through the village.

Ysaa. I didn’t need a translation: dragon. Which didn’t make any sense. There were no dragons. Not even in the North, a place of cold, harsh judgments. Dragons were mythical creatures. And they had nothing to do with hounds.

“Ysaa,” everyone whispered, until the word was a hiss. As much as the dragon’s breath, creeping down from the gaping stone mouth.

Then, having named it, they all turned once more to me. Bright blue eyes were expectant; clearly, they wanted something. Something to do with the dragon.

I glanced at Del. “This is ridiculous.” In Southron, not Northern; I have some diplomacy. “I came here to find whoever was sending out the hounds, not discuss bedtime stories.”

“Well,” she said lightly, “if it is ridiculous, your task will be that much simpler.”

“Why?” I asked suspiciously.

“Why do you think?” she retorted. “They want you to kill the dragon.”

I peered up at the dragon-shaped mountain. It was a pile of stone, nothing more. “If that’s true,” I told her, “this job will be very easy.”

All right, it was a stupid thing to say. If I have learned anything in this business, it is never to underestimate your opponent. But the idea of a mountain being an enemy was enough to irritate even me, even-tempered as I am; people who allow religion or mythology to control their lives are begging for trouble. It just doesn’t happen that way. We’re born, we live, we die—gods don’t have anything to do with it any more than dragons do.

And I’d come hunting hounds.

Now, inside a lodge, Del shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “No other sword-dancers from Staal-Ysta ever reached them. Only you. And so now you can fulfill your promise, as you said.” She paused. “Isn’t that what you told me? That you took on the task of aiding Ysaa-den in the name of your new-won rank?”

Well, yes. Sort of. I mean, I had, but all I’d been after was a chance to track down the hounds. At the time, it had provided a means of escape. A means of putting behind me what I’d done to Del. Because the only way I could deal with her death was to hide from it in a job.

Trouble was—well, no, not trouble—Del wasn’t dead. Which meant I no longer needed the job, because there was nothing to hide from.

The people of Ysaa-den—with all their animals—had escorted us en masse to the headman’s lodge. It was the biggest, but also the emptiest; he’d lost half of his family to, he told us, the dragon.